Reporter gets five years in Turkmenistan

New York, October 5, 2011 -- The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the sentencing today of Dovletmurad Yazguliyev, a local
correspondent for the Turkmen service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to five years in prison on charges of inciting a
relative's suicide attempt.

Authorities detained Yazguliyev on September 27 in his
native Akhal region in eastern Turkmenistan and put him on trial on Tuesday, RFE/RL
said in a statement. The trial lasted roughly two days and proceeded without
a defense lawyer, press reports said.

According to Oguljamal Yazliyeva, RFE/RL's Turkmen service director,
authorities pressured Yazguliyev's relatives in mid-September to sign a
statement saying that Yazguliyev had tried to get his sister-in-law to commit
suicide. His relatives later tried to withdraw the statement to no avail,
Yazliyeva said.

Today, an Akhal district court convicted Yazguliyev of
inciting suicide and sentenced him to five years in jail, RFE/RL
reported. Yazguliyev's family members, including the one who attempted suicide,
testified in court in his defense, but their statements were ignored, Yazliyeva
told CPJ. Yazguliyev will be appealing the verdict, Yazliyeva said.

"This conviction is none other than an attempt to silence an
independent reporter," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina
Ognianova said. "We call on the appeals court to overturn this verdict."

Yazguliyev and his colleagues believe he is being punished
for his critical journalism. He was one of the first journalists to break news
of deadly arms storage explosions in the eastern town of Abadan on July 7. Following
his reporting for RFE/RL and blogging about the blasts, Yazguliyev was summoned
by police and threatened with "consequences" if he did not stop
reporting the story, the independent regional news website Fergana News said.

Initially authorities
maintained silence about the blasts, and state-controlled press did not cover
the accident. After the news spread out of the country via social networks and
mobile phones, the government acknowledged the explosions by releasing a vague
statement, the independent regional news website EurasiaNet reported.